


Not Routine

by SixStepsAway



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: BDSM, Dom!Clara, F/M, he needs something from her and it's not sex (yet), i twisted two ideas i had together and this came out, sub!twelve, this won't get sexual for a while
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-15 02:44:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15403221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SixStepsAway/pseuds/SixStepsAway
Summary: The Doctor is missing something. He's missing two things, if he's honest with himself (and he isn't usually). One of them is a girl named Clara, the other is his domme. They might just be the same person, so he keeps coming back to the only place that might have answers: the diner.





	Not Routine

**Author's Note:**

> I had the idea when I watched Hell Bent for the Doctor continually coming back to visit her at the diner and slowly falling for her all over again. Then I was overwhelmed during season 10 by what a massive sub this boy is. So I combined the two.

It's not a routine.

It's just one visit.

He lands his TARDIS somewhere in the bowels of Nevada, picks up his electric guitar and starts walking. He walks like he'll find what he's looking for without a map to guide him and he does, somehow. It isn't where it was, but he supposes neither is he.

The diner sits, tucked up against a cliff this time, and he lets his mouth sag open slightly as he gazes at it. There's no one else around, probably because there's no roads and no sign of civilisation either. There's just a diner.

He knows he should turn around, he knows what he experienced last time he was here and what that means. He should turn on his heel and walk away as fast as he can. It isn't safe to be here and it isn't a good idea. She could be anyone.

But, a little voice reminds him, she's someone who returned his TARDIS, so how bad could she be?

He pushes the door open, strides in and up to the counter and there's no sign of her. It makes sense, maybe she's not on shift, maybe she doesn't even work here anymore. Maybe he left it sixty-seven years.

Maybe he just shouldn't be here at all.

He takes a seat at the counter, hooks his guitar up and strums it a few times, lets the sound echo around the diner like he's ringing a bell and begging the waitress to appear.

She does.

He doesn't see where she comes from but then she steps around behind the counter and she looks like he remembers from his last visit with a round face and dark hair. He can't place her age, she could be twenty and she could be two hundred, he wouldn't know either way. He never really does.

"Did you find your TARDIS?" she says and he looks up, his fingertips pressing to the frets of his guitar.

"So it wasn't a dream that I told you that," he says around the tiniest chuckle. He places his guitar down across his lap and looks at her. Something in his chest tugs. Something in his stomach clenches.

When something goes missing, you can always recreate it by the hole it left. He said it before and he means it now. He's missing a Clara, whoever and whatever she was, and he's missing something... else, something he isn't really willing to admit to.

"Do you not usually regale waitresses with the thrilling adventures of you and your TARDIS?" she asks and she pours him a drink, exactly how he likes it. He watches the coffee fill the mug, dark and bitter like he pretends he is inside, and then looks up at her.

"You'd be surprised," he says and picks up the cup, taking a sip. She drifts away and he looks around. The diner is too clean to be in any kind of use, and there's still no one there. The coffee machine is clean, the cups are clean, everything is shiny and clean and looks almost brand new except for the jukebox.

The jukebox looks battered. He's unsure why.

He should start asking questions, so he turns back and when he does her face is in his, like it was before, when she asked if he was looking for Clara, whoever she was.

He isn't thinking about Clara now, not as he meets her dark eyes.

She knocks him off his feet before he can ask his questions by asking her own, "Why did you come here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," he says primly.

"I work here," she says and puts her chin on her hand. He considers arguing that point, but he'll leave it for another day.

 _Another day?_ a voice in his head demands. He ignores how it sounds suspiciously like his TARDIS.

"I suppose you do," he says, even though he really doesn't.

"So why did you come back here?" she says.

He licks his lips. He fingers his guitar. He wants to lie so badly it burns in his chest but he can't force it out through his throat. Curiosity, he wants to say, but it's a lie. It's a lie and these dark brown eyes will see right through it like they so clearly see right through him.

"I'm missing something," he finally says. It's the closest he'll get to the truth today and she can tell, he can tell that she can tell. She draws back a little.

"Clara?" she says. "The girl you lost?"

He hesitates and she searches his eyes.

"Did you lose someone else?" she says and there's such sadness in her voice and he wonders where she got it.

"No," he says. _Not yet,_ he feels. "It's not a person, I don't think."

She flicks her eyes between his, searches his entire being with a disconnected, dispassionate glance. "What do you think it is?"

He places the guitar down on the counter, practically signs it over to her care. It's not just some item he picked up at a flea market, no it was _given_ to him by someone very special, very long ago, and he's placing it down like some kind of surrender.

She follows the motion, tracks the guitar as it causes a dull thunking against the counter. She looks back at his face and there's weighing going on behind her eyes. He looks away, back at the guitar. He doesn't know what he wants, sure as hell doesn't know what he expects, but he hasn't answered and she hasn't pressed further. They just stand in silence as it rolls down across them like a blanket, like they're the last two people in the universe.

"Stand up."

His legs straighten like they're obeying some instinct he's unaware of and he finds himself on his feet. He looks across at her and lets out a deep breath, the kind he's been holding for a billion years.

She walks out from behind the counter, steps next to one of the stools. He wants to move towards her but he doesn't, _can't_ without her word. He's not sure he could even leave without her word.

Is this what surrender feels like? Is this giving up? Is this _losing?_

"Kneel."

He sinks to his knees at her feet, he keeps his back straight and his head up, his eyes locked on her face. Her eyes have softened now, but they're steely as well. She takes a step towards him and reaches out. Her hand pauses beside his head and for a moment time stops, then her fingertips brush through his hair, pushing the loose curls back from his forehead.

A soft sigh escapes him and he closes his eyes. Her fingernails scratch lightly at his scalp and his entire body trembles with something he can't identify.

"What do you need?" she asks and he wants to say _this_ , he wants to tell her that this was exactly what he needed but it's wrong, it isn't quite the truth, and he can't lie to her, he can't do it.

"Direction," he says, but his voice falters.

"No lies," she says and her fingers twist up in his hair. He lets out a little gasp. "Open your eyes and tell me the truth to my face."

He forces his eyes open bit by bit, turns his gaze up towards her. Doesn't she know he couldn't lie anyway? He doesn't know why. He hasn't known why ever since he sat down and poured his life story out for her waiting ears.

"Orders," he says. He sighs again like it's the biggest relief he's ever felt and maybe it is. "I need orders. I need to know what to do now."

Her hand slides down, cups his cheek. The pad of her thumb brushes the underside of his lower lip, still on the edge of an innocence that feels so fragile.

"Run," she says. "Run and be a doctor." He turns his face into her hand, presses his nose and mouth to her fingers and palm, closes his eyes again. "And when you need direction..." He opens his eyes. "I'll be here."

He looks across at her and she's kneeling in front of him, still completely in control despite her posture.

He lifts his hand, wraps it around her tiny one against his cheek and kisses her palm.

He wants to say thank you, but he doesn't know how.

Maybe this can become a routine.

**Author's Note:**

> Her hesitation before she pets his hair is because she had to stop her fingers shaking.


End file.
